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It was supposed to be a friendly talk about an East Harlem art space.
But when board members of the nonprofit Casabe Housing Development
Fund met with Melissa Mark-Viverito, now front-runner for the City
Council speakership, they faced a lashing out of left field.
“You used the occasion to rant against [board member Yolanda Sanchez]
. . . because she had not actively supported you the first time you ran
for City Council,” Casabe directors wrote in a February 2011 letter to
Mark-Viverito. “The clear implication that your office engages in ‘quid
pro quo’ practices . . . completely shocked us.”
The senior-housing group also wrote, “In your vitriolic rant, you
voiced dismay that the African-American constituents consider you a
racist and that the Puerto Ricans dislike you.”
Many activists interviewed by The Post said they feared what would
happen if Mark-Viverito headed the council — claiming that advocates who
stand up to her are often blacklisted.
For Casabe, it all started when Fernando Salicrup’s arts group,
Taller Boricua, was evicted from a city-owned cultural center in 2011
after more than a decade.
Mark-Viverito said Salicrup wasn’t running the space properly and
asked the Economic Development Corp. to find a new operator. Casabe
stepped in to propose their ideas, which the angry lawmaker rejected.
The center now languishes vacant.
Salicrup could not be reached for comment, but a source said he was
booted in retaliation over his support of now-Assemblyman Robert
Rodriguez.
“Everyone in our neighborhood is afraid of Melissa,” said Gwen
Goodwin, an East Harlem activist who ran against Mark-Viverito for City
Council last year. “It brings into question the discretion of the person
you’re asking to be the next-most-
powerful person in the city.”
The lefty lawmaker was the first council member to support the bid of
Mayor de Blasio, who in return has been pushing her for speaker.
“It’s too much power to put in her hands,” said Jo Ann Lawson, who
claims Mark-Viverito booted her from the community board in March 2013
after 10 years of service in order to add more Latino members.
Lawson said Mark-Viverito would often call board members and tell them how to vote.
Neighborhood resentment deepened in 2012, after the lawmaker helped
cancel a city contract held by a Puerto Rican nonprofit for 20 years for
the Leonard Covello Senior Center — giving it to an Upper East Side
group.
While the wealthy councilwoman donned “99%” T-shirts during Occupy
Wall Street protests, she’s come under fire for taking advantage of tax
breaks reserved for the poor.
The Puerto Rico-born politician, the daughter of a rich hospital
administrator, owns $1.5 million in real estate. Yet she obtained an
interest-free loan under a city program to help low-income people buy
homes.
“It’s a shame that Melissa has not only gotten [into office] but that
she really is a fraud,” said Goodwin, who last week filed a
million-dollar suit against her.
Goodwin claims the councilwoman put a grotesque mural of an impaled
rooster on her building while they ran for district leader last year.
She says the painting is a “death threat.”
Still, Mark-Viverito lavishes money on supporters, giving $65,000 in
the past two years to low-income advocates Community Voices Heard and
helping to push $160,000 in council funds to Picture the Homeless, run
by her ally Lynn Lewis, according to budget data.
Franklin Plaza, a 1,632-unit co-op, received a $1-million grant from
Mark-Viverito. The board posted flyers requesting residents re-elect
her.
But Army veteran Sgt. Jose Sanchez, who lives at the co-op, says he
hasn’t been able to get the lawmaker to help fund a children’s boxing
club. The councilwoman canceled the last three meetings scheduled with
El Barrio Boxing Association, he said.
“I was asked to vote for her,” Sanchez told The Post. “I felt
disgusted about it. She can give my building $1 million but not $40,000
for our group? This is for the kids of East Harlem.”
A rep for Mark-Viverito called claims against her “false.”
“While she can’t help fund every group, Melissa has an outstanding
. . . relationship with the overwhelming majority of community groups,”
said spokesman Eric Koch.
“It’s demonstratively false to claim otherwise